Truncated this What's New page at September 2014 - use the "Find other What's New posts..." control at the top to go back in time.

A rare vintage Boodle Alderman Puzzle - enameled tin plate.
Said by Slocum to have been made in 1891 by "Strait Manufacturing, Hatter & Glover."
Based on the idea of a corrupt politician of the times in shackles.
My copy is in fairly good shape but is incomplete - some of the shackle pieces are missing.
Both
James Dalgety and Jerry Slocum have this puzzle -
it is described in Slocum's
Puzzles Old and New on page 93.
Both admit, however, (as do I) to lacking a clear understanding of the puzzle's objective and solution.
If anyone out there has any information about this puzzle, especially a solution sheet, please contact me!

June 2015

Think Outside the Box - designed by Tom Jolly and made by Eric Fuller
from Cherry, Padauk, Maple, Yellowheart, and Purpleheart woods.

A-Pack - designed by Terry Smart and made by Eric Fuller
from Walnut and acrylic with Bird's Eye Maple pieces.
A packing puzzle with two trapped sliding shuttles.

Optiborn - designed by Stephane Chomine and made by Brian Menold
from Black Palm, Wenge, and Holly.

Halny - designed by Jos Bergmans and made by Brian Menold
from Black Palm, Holly, Olivewood, Canarywood, Bocote, and Lacewood.

Delight - designed by Stephane Chomine and made by Brian Menold
from Lacewood and Bolivian Rosewood.

Quadrox - designed by Stephane Chomine and made by Brian Menold
from Padauk and Red Oak.

Twiddler Double Dilemma - designed by Wilfried Braun

2x2x2 Metalized Egg - Blue - Meffert

Curvy Dino - designed by Evgeniy Grigoriev, issued by Calvin's Puzzle

Okki - a vintage keychain twisty puzzle

Anchor Ei des Columbus

Anchor Geduldprüfer

Anchor Blitzableiter

Anchor Grillentöter

Nob Devil

A vintage White Rose Tea Puzzle

A vintage Knight's Tour puzzle by Are-Jay

A vintage Dingbat sliding piece puzzle

Check Saw - vintage checkerboard dissection from Shackman

A vintage X-cel Checkerboard Puzzle

A nice, large Kumiki Tori Gate

Keychain Shmoo puzzle on original card
with a previously obtained white example
Also shown - excerpt from
Billboard magazine of May 1949 offering "Shmoo Puzzle Keychains with fortune" at a dozen for $1.50 or a gross for $16.20.

As indicated on its card, the Shmoo originally contained a fortune - on a small slip of flimsy paper and nestled in the cavity in the white piece shown at bottom center in my photo of the puzzle's pieces. Mine is missing, as are most.
Here is a record at worthpoint.com of a 2014 auction for an instance that included the elusive fortune paper, though there is no photo of the fortune itself.

Aside from the head and tail pieces, the Shmoo puzzle is equivalent in architecture to the Lucky Duck keychain puzzle issued by Pal Plastics, which also appeared as the Lucky Ducky that itself contained a fortune - one instruction sheet promised 'Find your fortune inside "Lucky Ducky."'
(See step D in instructions shown below - "Find Egg Inside.")

Here are some interesting facts about the Shmoo, from
Denis Kitchen's
website, the
Wikipedia article on Capp, and the
Wikipedia article on the Shmoo:
By the postwar 1940's Al Capp's comic strip "Li'l Abner" - created in 1934 - had millions of fans and had made him millions of dollars.
In
August 1948 Capp (b. Alfred Gerald Caplin 1909 in Connecticut, d. 1979) introduced a new character called the Shmoo, which became an unprecedented merchandising phenomenon, spawning dozens of Shmoo-themed products and lasting through 1952 - and generating over $25,000,000 in sales in one year (in dollars of the time - more than $200 million today).
Shmoos packed with candy were dropped by the U.S. during the Berlin Airlift.
A Shmoo Savings Bond was issued by the U.S. Treasury Department in 1949 - Al Capp appeared with President Truman at the unveiling ceremony.
Shmoos appeared alongside Capp on the
cover of Time magazine in 1950.
For a not-so-flattering account of Capp and his strip, see an article
The Brand Called Shmoo by Daniel Raeburn at the Baffler website.

"The Shmoo is shaped like a plump bowling pin with legs, but no arms."
Oddly, the card shows a Shmoo with arms, but the iconic character has none.
More Shmoo trivia - Shmoos are white - there are evil Shmoos called Nogoodniks and they're green colored.

I have split off the Keychain Puzzles from my Interlocking page and given them
their own page.
The Interlocking page has grown very long, and there are now almost 500 keychain puzzles shown!
Hopefully I have correctly updated the site navigation.

And here are a few nice keychain puzzle finds, several with cards, boxes, or instruction sheets...

Peter Pan Dog on original card

Merit Lorry on original card - hard plastic

Merit Helicopter on original card - hard plastic

Keim Keychain Puzzle Set from West Germany on original card
Includes a Plane, Destroyer, and Jeep in red, white, and blue.

Mechanical Servants Robot

Mechanical Servants Truck

Mechanical Servants Sedan

Keychain puzzle Pig

Keychain puzzle Elephant

Atomic Jet

Bibendum - yellow

Large Locomotive - Lido

Small Locomotive

Keychain Puzzle Jalopy

Jericho Car - pink

Keychain Puzzle Star - in red, and in blue - both new in package

Firefly Hotaru designed by Akio Yamamoto
A tiny hand-made secret box.

Hanayama Cast Hexagon designed by Mineyuki Uyematsu
Adapted from "Claws of Satan"
winner of a Jury Honorable Mention in the 2014 IPP Design Competition.

Four in a Box designed by, made by,
and purchased from Alfons Eyckmans

A vintage XceL Checkerboard Puzzle

Dreidel Cube designed by Guan Yang
issued by Lim Cube

2x2x2 Mirror Blocks Cube

12-petal Russian Festival Flower

May 2015

Serengeti Box - designed and made by Matthew Sobek
The Ebony Giraffe and Elephant are the keys to opening this Zebrawood,
Bloodwood, Alder, Oak, and Mahogany secret box.
But be careful or they'll jump out at you!

Monstrous Maze Straight
and Narrow (red) issued by Tomy 1982

Naked Secret Box Orange designed by Akio Yamamoto

Champion Spark Plug tangle

Rudenko's Mosaic - issued by Brainwright
Thanks, Alison!

Cat Stax - issued by Brainwright
Thanks, Alison!

2 Rings - designed by Chi-Ren Chen
made by Brian Menold from Hickory and Walnut

Plusminus - designed by Yavuz Demirhan
made by Brian Menold from
Brazilian Rosewood and Canarywood

Frisbee - designed by Stephane Chomine
made by Brian Menold from Hickory and Wenge

Pyraminx Diamond - 8 color version
issued by Meffert

Metalized 3x3x3 Egg - blue version
issued by Meffert

Gear Barrel - issued by Meffert

Keychain Fire Truck with Siren - 2 examples

Keychain Hot Rod

Keychain Japanese Jingle Bell

Keychain Russian Rooster

Keychain Bell Elephant

Keychain Peter Pan Ball

April 2015

I have managed to find several keychain puzzles, including duplicates and a few new items...

Pontiac Indian Head automotive advertising keychain puzzle.
Really happy to have acquired this unusual puzzle!
"Canada" is embossed on the hair piece.
The blue wedge rotates to allow the green and red wedges to be removed.

Lufthansa Supercargo advertising keychain puzzle.
This has quite a few more pieces than the typical keychain puzzle!

Waldi dog Olympic mascot keychain puzzle.
Since my first was slightly damaged, I found a couple more.

Japanese Diver keychain puzzle.
With instructions.

Bowling Pin and Ball with card.

Assorted keychain puzzles...

Sombrero Man - I am unaware of the provenance of this puzzle.
It is similar to the puzzles in the Shackman Clown series

Soccer Man - I am unaware of the provenance of this puzzle.
It is similar to the puzzles in the Shackman Clown series

Kumiki Locomotive

Kumiki Battleship

Kumiki Airplane

Barcode Burr designed by Lee Krasnow3D printed by Stephen Miller
Stephen has designed the Fire puzzle, available at his website
PyroPuzzles.

Smart burr designed and made by Alfons Eyckmansfrom Itauba and Wenge woods
15 pieces, level 24.7.1.1.4.1.2.3.1.4.5.4.2
I like it because of its 'S' theme!

Bundle of Sticks designed by Tom Jollymade by Eric Fuller from Wenge and Holly

Chicken Puzzle designed by Olexandre Kapkanmade by Eric Fuller from Yellowheart and Cherry

Matchbox Play Six designed by Olexandre Kapkanmade by Eric Fuller

Houdini designed by Nicholas Cravotta and Rebecca Bleauproduced by Thinkfun
A tanglement puzzle kit with 40 challenges.

Pentagram designed by Eric Vergoproduced by Mf8
Once again an expensive 3D printed twisty gets mass produced.

W(h)orl(e)d Burr designed by Derek Bosch3D printed by Steve Nicholls

March 2015

Rhombic Maze Burr designed and
3D printed by Derek Bosch.

Try It a vintage static cubic
4x4x4 maze issued by Milton Bradley 1960.
I found a second copy in its box.

Castle designed by Tzy Hung Chein.
Made by Pelikan from Oak and Mahogany.

Kumiki Alligator

Spacemen Jiggle Puzzle issued by Comon Tatar 1957.

Brackets Burr designed by Stéphane Chomine.
Six pieces, made by Brian Menold from Redheart and Wenge.

Just Two In Box designed by Stéphane Chomine.
Two pieces and cage, made by Brian Menold from Canarywood and Walnut.

Red Planks designed by Jos Bergmans.
Nine pieces, made by Brian Menold from Redheart and Maple.

Khamsin designed by Jos Bergmans.
Four pieces and ring, made by Brian Menold from
Walnut, Maple, Wenge, Redheart, and Yellowheart.

Viper Cross by Vinco.
Six piece coordinate motion puzzle.

A set of three Jungle Bungle edgematching puzzles designed by Dan Gilbert.
Issued by DaMert in 1992. Each has eight pieces -
form a square such that pictures on abutting edges match.
Large pieces on nice heavy cardstock.

Several new puzzles arrived over the last few weeks but I have had limited time to photograph them and add them here. Attempting now to remedy that...

Knot Simple designed by Doug Engel.
Issued by Bits & Pieces.

Hanayama Cast Keyholedesigned by Vesa Timonen.

Five tanglements from LiveWire, including:
Alien Encounter,
Off the Rails,
Ringleader,
Roller Coaster, and
Wish Upon A Star.

I finally managed to find the lovely Chinese Cross Compendium issued by Pentangle.

Quad Rhom issued 1991 by Tensegrity Systems.

Four Piece Ball Pyramid issued by Kinder Ferrero

HELLical Burr designed by Derek Boschas a more fiendish follow-up to his 2013 prize-winning Helical Burr.
Four pieces. Printed by and purchased from Steve Nicholls.
Kevin Sadler posted a YouTube video of the disassembly
here.

The Kray Twins designed and 3D Printed by Steve Nicholls.
This unusual six-piece burr was Steve's IPP34 exchange gift.
Steve kindly sent me a copy - thanks very much, Steve!

Cross and Crown 7 organized by Michel van Ipenburgand made by Robrecht Louage.
A higher-level version of the original 1913 Cross and Crown -
C & C 7 requires 4802 moves!

Big Ben - a secret-opening puzzle designed by John Moores,
Junichi Yananose, and Brian Young. Made by Brian Young (Mr. Puzzle Australia).
This was John Moores' generous exchange gift for IPP34.
Sadly, John passed away in January 2015.
Made from Papua New Guinean Rosewood, Western Australian Jarrah,
and Queensland Silver Ash, with some metal tools inside.

Hourglassdesigned by Osanori Yamamoto.
Made by Pelikan.
Remove four U-shaped pieces from a frame.
Purchased from Tim Rowett at NYPP2015.

Akiyama Cubedesigned by Hisayoshi Akiyama.
Made by Naoyuki Iwase (Osho).

I was a guest on WNPR Radio on the Colin McEnroe show!
McEnroe's January 27th program was on the topic of Puzzles and I was asked to talk about the history of puzzles.
It was fun but a bit nerve-wracking :-)
Check out
Puzzles: The Joy of Being Perplexed at the WNPR website.
There is a link where you can listen to a playback.

Padlock from the Pirate's Wallet Chest by Robert "Stickman" Yarger
Thanks, Rob!

I found a second vintage Ryede Puzzle (on the left) - this one is complete
and even came with its paper package/instructions in pristine condition.
Also shown:
Ryede patent - 787796 - Rydquist 1905
and a listing for the Ryede Keyring Puzzle in an early 1900's vintage catalog from the Western Puzzle Works in Minnesota.

A vintage red Magic Egg Puzzle - a red celluloid (or plastic?) egg
with gold and black markings.
"Stand it on end - try it" - balance the egg on its fat end.
An internal weight and magnet frustrate your efforts.
Label says "Pat. Pend."
I don't have any information on the origin or history of this puzzle -
if you do know something about it (or if you have a photo of the interior of
a specimen), please email me!

Allen Rolfs was kind enough to send me copies of several reproductions he has made of antique puzzles -
including Leprechaun's Dilemma, The USA Puzzle, Rabbit in Hat, and The London Underground.
Thanks very much, Allen!

I made a trip up to Cambridge and stopped in at Games People Playwhere I found a nice repro of a vintage paper puzzle The Boxer by
4moreideasand a matchbox-sized silhouette puzzle This is no pipe 1995 Wetzel - Heilbronn - W. Germany.

In Brookline I stopped in at Eureka Puzzles and found
a Mixed Up cube from Philos designed by Ad van der Schagt,
and a Down Under obstructed-entry tray packing puzzle by Siebenstein Spiele.
Down Under also poses some anti-slide type challenges.

John Hache posted a link to a vendor
(Otakumode.com - also available elsewhere) selling these
Nyanko Clay Pot Puzzles.
Pack six different cat-shaped pieces into a bowl so the lid fits properly.
I bought the versions with black cats (Kuroneko) and white cats (Mikeneko).
There is a third version with tan cats (Doraneko).

The Dirty Dozen - a versatile sliding piece puzzle by Square Root.
Twelve different challenges using the large wooden pieces and tray.

I obtained a vintage catalog
issued by the Western Puzzle Worksof Minnesota sometime in the early 1900's -
it shows several antique puzzles I own -
now I know what they were called!

The F - Nob Puzzle Series 1987
A nice wooden tangram-style puzzle.
The first challenge, to reassemble the dissected letter F, is quite enjoyable.

Great Minds Set of 5 Puzzle Compendium
A gift from Claire and Steve - thanks!

A Puzzle Drive (Anchor) Tangram style Puzzle No. 13 "Qualgeist"

Geometric Magic Squares - Lee Sallows 2013 Dover
See Sallows' website.
I was reading about a puzzle called Cubic Matters exchanged at IPP34 by Yee-Dian Lee
and voted by James Dalgety as one of his best finds of 2014 -
this inspired me to read up more on Sallows' mathematical discoveries. Very interesting!
The set of pieces and the ways they can be combined to form cubes are shown in the diagram on the right.
See the Wikipedia article on Geometric Magic Square.

I have overhauled my section on
Kumiki Puzzles. Let me know what you think! Did you grow up with these? My first exposure was the plastic "8-Ball."

It's long overdue, so let me kick off the new year by describing the puzzle haul I received from the IPP34 held in London in August 2014.
I could not attend, so a big "Thank You" to Brett for being my surrogate magpie...

Baffling Bolted Book - designed by Louis Coolen and Adin Townsend
exchanged by Allard Walker
A gift from Allard - thanks very much!
This secret-opening sequential-discovery puzzle was a pleasure to play with!
I can be discouraged by and lose interest in secret-opening puzzles
when the mechanism seems just too arbitrarily difficult to me to fathom - I am easily bored by
the "randomly shake/whack/tilt/twist/prod/etc" methods too often required.
For some reason, though I can devote hours to the analysis of certain kinds of puzzles,
I find I have no patience for exhaustively worrying a secret box until something happens to work.
The Baffling Bolted Book, however, to me strikes just the right level of difficulty,
proffering potentially rewarding insights at each step.
The book employs metal hardware and some clever 3D-printed pieces.
And inside awaits a deceptive tray-packing/symmetric shape puzzle designed by Adin.

Geared Mixup Cube - designed by Oskar van Deventer
produced by Meffert
A gift from Rox - thanks!

Cross and Crown 2013 - originally designed by Louis Burbank in 1913
(2013 version shown compared with smaller metal original)
Updated version arranged by Michel van Ipenburg based on my original example
and made by Robrecht Louage
exchanged by Dr. Goetz Schwandtner
The disk and cross material is "trespa."

Coronation Cube - designed by Richard Gain

Trick Symmetric - V. Krasnoukhov

Bickering Couple - Pavel Curtis

Three Layer Double Dovetail - K. Malcolmson, R. Sandfield

Naked Secret Box Red - Yamamoto, Kimura

Twin Board Burr - Dawir

Color Slide - Hans van der Zanden

Six Ticks - Andreas Röver

Bindi - V. Krasnoukhov

Crab Puzzle - V. Krasnoukhov

C'est la Vie - Camden Lock

Three Pentagons - Arai

Join the Club - Scott Elliott

Rabbit in Hat - Allen Rolfs

Windmill Key - Tyler Somer
I received this at the 2014 Rochester Puzzle Party
(RPP) that followed IPP34. Thanks, Tyler!

Whatsit - a "guess what this is" object given to me by R. Hess. Thanks, Dick!
(I cheated and simply visited the website embossed on the object :-)

Houses and Factories 2 - Hess
Purchased at a get-together.

At our September LSC get-together,
I had the opportunity to play with (solve and restore)
R. Hess' instance of an original vintage
Cooksey Maze puzzle issued by Pentangle.
The peg seen at the bottom can be pushed in and toggles back and forth
with a satisfying "snick" between the position in the
photo,
and the diametrically opposite position across the cylinder,
thus engaging different slots within the maze sleeve.
One must navigate the sleeve off the bottom of the cylinder
by a series of rotations, downward and upward slides, and pin toggles.
Way cool!
Oskar van Deventer has designed a simplified version,
available at
Oskar's Shapeways shop.
Oskar also offers several varieties of the
Cooksey Tribute.

December 2014

Happy New Year to my readers! I hope the new year brings health and happiness to you all.

Google Analytics tells me that since its inception in its current form in November of 2007,
Rob's Puzzle Page has garnered over 1,000,000 sessions and more than 789,000 unique users from over 220 different regions of the world - not bad considering there are only 196 countries.
I even had one visitor from North Korea and one from Turkmenistan.
As far as I can tell, the only areas from which I have had no visitors are:

Svalbard and Jan Mayen (remote islands in the Arctic Ocean)

Democratic Republic of the Congo (where 97% of the population has no internet access)

Western Sahara (one of the most sparsely populated regions in the world)

Solomon Islands (I don't know what their excuse is :-)

The top twelve volumes were from:

US (over half)

UK (9%)

Canada (6%)

Australia

Germany

Netherlands

France

Japan

Spain

India

Italy

Russia

Thank you to all the folks who took the time to email me - I have enjoyed our dialogues and I look forward to new discussions.

The last puzzles of 2014...

Dayan Gem VI

Moyu Master Fisher Cube

Q-Borg - by Auldey

2-piece Fish Keychain Puzzle

I received several puzzles, either purchased or as gifts, from the IPP34 in London in August, even though I could not attend. I have yet to photograph them and put them up on the site - I plan to get to them forthrightly in 2015.
To those who sent gifts - you know who you are - thank you very much!

Happy Holidays to my Puzzling Family and Friends!

Check out
Smart-Kit.com - an interesting collection of online puzzle/games. (I have no affiliation with them at all - I just enjoyed a couple of their offerings.)

8 Plaques designed by Stephane Chomine
made by Brian Menold
Looks like a Snafooz-type cube, doesn't it?
That is, until you realize there are eight pieces rather than six!
I am not going to show you the assembled cube,
since the image gives too many hints.

Packuliar designed by Tom Jolly
made by Brian Menold
Pack the four pieces into the box -
a sequential assembly puzzle.
No solved image - too much of a hint.

Cross 5 designed by Yavuz Demirhan
made by Brian Menold
from Canarywood, Walnut and Redheart
Remove five pieces from the frame.
11 moves to free the first piece.

Distorted Cube / Pyramid Pile designed by Stewart Coffin
made by Brian Menold
from Poplar
Arrange the pieces to fill the box 3 different ways
and also make two pyramids outside the box.

Four Piece Pyramid designed by Stewart Coffin
beautifully made by Brian Menold
from Redheart, Padauk, and Yellowheart
A very tricky assembly of four pieces!

Painful designed by Yavuz Demirhan
made by Brian Menold
from Canarywood and Redheart
Separate the four pieces
14 moves to free the first piece.

Boron designed by Donald Osselaer
made by Eric Fuller

Gobi designed by Alfons Eyckmans
made by Eric Fuller

Rupture designed by Dan Fast
made by Eric Fuller

Vibromax Jumping Jack Tamper keychain puzzle

Ship keychain puzzle - in package, made in HK

Mf8 Crazy Octahedron Standard - no circle faces
This substantial puzzle is a nice implementation
of the "Dino-Octa"
face-turning octahedron
design (GB 4.1.3) originally hand-made by Katsuhiko Okamoto in 2006.
[T]
Out of the box it is prone to catching, though.
I prefer stickerless twisty puzzles like this when available.

Mf8 Crazy Octahedron Venus - all circle faces
The four other "planets" (Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn)
can be made by combining pieces of the
Standard and Venus puzzles.
[Y]

Some more puzzles from my friends at Ceaco - check back periodically at their
Brainwright website for interesting new items!

Plexi Roundominoes - issued by Brainwright
A colorful set of 28 curvy shapes and a booklet of assembly challenges.
Developed by Kadon.

Plexi Iamondhex - issued by Brainwright
A colorful set of 12 angular shapes and a booklet of assembly challenges.

CoCoCross - issued by Brainwright
A set of graduated rolling-block challenges
with two different blocks and an ingenious
and convenient compact case.
This is one of my new favorites!

On the Line - issued by Brainwright
A set of graduated overlay-pattern-assembly challenges.
Arrange four identical transparencies to form a given shape.

Manifold - issued by Brainwright
A pad of 9cm2 sheets, printed with various
patterns of light and dark areas.
Fold every sheet so one side is all light and
the other all dark. Gets quite tricky!
Manifold was developed by Jérôme Morin-Drouin at
The Incredible Company.
You can download a PDF with five sample challenges at their website.

A nice package arrived from Turkey -
Trichromat designed and made by Yavuz Demirhan
The 7cm cubic cage is Wenge, and there are 3 pairs of pieces, of oak, maple, and padauk.
44 moves to get the first piece out.

Kumiki Lionwith instruction sheet on very flimsy paper
new old stock from auction

Robinson Roulette - German version
"Created by Terry Pegg of Choro Ltd. Birmingham UK."
Issued by Milton Bradley 1985
See Jaap's page on Robinson Roulette.
This is a solitaire sequential movement puzzle.
There are 11 holes in both the outer and inner rings and each ring also has an arrow.
The inner ring rotates relative to the outer.
To set up, orient the outer ring so its arrow is at 12 o'clock, and the inner arrow to 6 o'clock.
Populate the inner ring with 10 red pegs and 1 white peg ensuring that the white peg is not at 12 o'clock.
The goal is to transfer all red pegs
and lastly the white peg from the inner ring to the outer.
A move consists of grabbing the peg at 12 o'clock on the inner ring and rotating
until it becomes adjacent to an
empty spot on the outer ring, then transfering it to that spot.
This movement of course simultaneously positions some other inner hole (and its peg if present) at 12 o'clock.
Choose your destinations wisely since if you haven't yet placed the white peg
and you're left with no inner peg at 12 o'clock for the next move, you've lost.

Cover Up (2004)Puzzle-friend Jacques Haubrich kindly sent me a copy
of this 8-piece puzzle, which he says is the "mother" of this type of puzzle,
designed by Robert Reid
(examples here).
The later Boston Cover Up from 2006 is similar but
uses 3 J-shaped pieces rather than the 3 U-shaped (or C-shaped)
pieces in Jacques' 2004 version, and requires six 1x3 bars
to cover them as opposed to the five 1x3 bars needed here.
Thanks, Jacques!

As of late 2014, there is a new series of 2x2x2 head-shaped twisty puzzles, called Mad Hedz, issued by
Intex Entertainment (aka New Entertainment).
I got four of the six (two aren't out yet) from Amazon.

DaYan Gem VIII

Yong Jun (YJ) Moyu Crazy Yileng Fisher Cube - another "axised" 3x3x3

Paul Stevens of Wisconsin kindly sent me a copy of a puzzle
he designed and made called the 8-in-1 Puzzle.
It is made from recycled wood and comprises eight pentacubes and a two-compartment box.
All but one of the pentacubes are non-planar.
Select any seven of the eight pieces then pack them
into the 3x3x4 compartment, allowing a single 1x1x1 void.
It is quite challenging! Thanks, Paul!

My friends over at Ceaco sent me several nice puzzles to review for the holiday season.
Thanks, Alison!
Ceaco specializes in jigsaws (but see below for their other product lines) -
check out the Ceaco website.
My wife and kids really enjoy jigsaws, and they prefer
complex scenes without a lot of uniform (boring) background pieces.
These two jigsaw puzzles from Ceaco fit the bill perfectly and provided hours of fun -
Magical World and Hidden Expedition Smithsonian -
the latter even comes with a disc containing a hidden-object PC game.

Ceaco's subsidiary Brainwright
(Brainwright website)
specializes in brainteasers
and mechanical puzzles, which are up my alley.
I've seen the 2015 catalog and Brainwright is really
expanding their lineup - there are a lot of cool new puzzles coming!
You can find retailers at Brainwright's Where to Buy link.

Orbis is a sequential-movement route-finding puzzle with 60 graduated challenges.
Orbis is a licensed copy of "Marble Monster" by the German company Huch & Friends.
It has an unusual mechanic I haven't seen before.
After the board is set up per a challenge card, you use the orange "pawn" to move
from circle to circle along a hexagonal grid, pushing a single marble on each move,
with the goal of eventually being in a position to push the yellow marble into the center.
The proper meandering path for the orange pawn is by no means trivial to deduce.
This is a great puzzle - if there is a flaw here, it is shared by many similar multi-piece graduated challenges -
when you realize you have gone astray and need to start over,
resetting the pieces can be a bit tedious.
I think this would make a great smartphone app!

GeoBrix - at first sight seems to be a standard 2D tray packing puzzle.
There are thirteen substantial-sized pieces - each a black solid planar polycube with one colored face.
They include some tetracubes, pentacubes, a hexacube, and a septacube.
However, not only is there the expected challenge to fit the pieces back into the square 8x8 tray
(for which there are at least 18 solutions)
but an included booklet gives 20 different tangram-like silhouettes to be built from the pieces.
And finally, one can build a 4x4x4 solid cube from the pieces.
Lots of replay value here.
Solutions are included.

Logic Dots is a pattern and logic puzzle - nine one-inch cubes with colored sides (one cube has six gold sides)
must be placed into a 3x3 tray according to one of 36 challenge cards,
each of which gives a series of clues.
Eight of the cubes have three colors and opposite faces are colored the same.
The tray is made with a sliding clear plate on each side. When playing, remove one plate but leave the other in -
for later challenges not only will you be rotating the tray,
but you have to flip it over and observe color positions on both sides of the tray.
You must deduce the correct cube positions based on the clues and ultimately locate the golden cube.
At the outset of each challenge you are told the relevant set of 9 colored cube faces to be used "face-up" in the grid -
since a cube's opposite faces are the same color, those will be the colors visible on both sides of the tray.
The logical challenges start simple but get much more difficult.
You may be reminded of Thinkfun's Chocolate Fix puzzle, but Logic Dots really ups the ante.
I think this would also be a good puzzle for precocious youngsters - at least the initial challenges.
The box says for ages 8+.
Logic Dots was created by the Swiss team Atelier Rohner and Wolf.

None of the puzzle inventors are credited on the packages, materials, or the website,
so if you know who invented these, please drop me an email!

Rocky Chiaro
designs elegant, unusual, and intriguing puzzles and is a superb craftsman who hand-machines them from solid brass.
Rocky is also one of the nicest puzzle people I have ever met.
You should visit
Rocky's website and check out the beautiful puzzles he has available.

I recently acquired some new puzzles from Rocky, and he very generously included several gifts. Thanks, Rocky, and Happy Holidays to you!
Here is a photo tribute showing the Rocky Chiaro puzzles I own. A few have been mass-produced and offered through Bits & Pieces.

The first image shows an original Perplexity, a B&P T-Dof, a D-Ice,
and a Good Egg.
The second image shows 3 "pin puzzles" - an AB-L, an Eight-Block Collusion, and
the Eight Rods Puzzle - an IPP26 souvenir gift from B&P similar to the AB-L.
Also shown are the Jax from B&P, It's a Hardly, and two copies of the Treasure Chest (aka New Endeavor) from B&P.

Rocky has produced a set of puzzle keys. Shown are: Hel-Sin-Key,
Boston Key Party, Toe-Key-Yo, the new King-Key (I love the name :-),
and two copies of the Roc-Key from B&P. For now I am stumped by the Toe-Key-Yo.

Last but certainly not least, here are Rocky's trick bolts. These are among my favorite puzzles.
Shown are: One-L-Nut, One-Wa-Sure, Pin-N-Nut, Dub-L-Nut,
Dub-L-Wa-Sure, Ring-N-Nut, the new Screw-E,
and two copies of the Brass Bolt (equivalent to the Ring-N-Nut) from B&P.
I haven't yet opened the Screw-E, Rocky!

Ariel Laden's Kookoo Puzzles - Funny FliersFour six-card puzzles, and one large puzzle using the backs of all 24 cards.
Position and interleave the cards of a set to form a complete picture.
This principle is very similar to that of the 1973 puzzle Frustables by Gameophiles Unlimited.

Heart interlocking keychain puzzle - its architecture is similar to the Bell Goose

Keychain Movie Camera puzzle - from Pussycat (Germany)

October 2014

Bedevil designed by Yavuz Demirhan, made by Brian Menold
from Redheart and Holly

Gates O designed by Tamas Vanyo, made by Brian Menold
A Box Elder cage with Bambooo pins and 8 identical Wenge pieces.
35 moves to get the first piece out.

Russian Flower - 6-Petal versionA vintage 3D sliding puzzle
Now I have examples of the 1-petal, 5-petal, and 6-petal versions.

A-Maze-Ment in the Pleasantime Games Tac-tix series from Pacific Game Co. 1967
A vintage sliding piece puzzle
Start with the eight numbered tokens on the board as printed.
Move one at a time along the connections, using the blank space, until they are in left-to-right numeric order.
This is topologically equivalent to an 8-piece puzzle in a 3x3 grid with one blank.

Transform this:

7--8--4
| | |
5--2--3
| | |
6--1--*

To this:

1--4--7
| | |
2--5--8
| | |
3--6--*

Zobrist Cube Set designed by Al Zobrist
A nice magnetic-closure box containing 33 plastic pieces and a 56 page booklet
specifying over 20,000 puzzles - each either a 3x3x3 cube, a 3x3x4 prism, or a 4x4x4 cube to be constructed from a subset of the pieces.
Zobrist Cube Kickstarterwww.zobristcube.com

Utopia issued by Popular Playthings 2009
invented by Sjaak Griffioen
Sixteen "buildings" - four each of four different heights.
Place on the 4x4 grid according to rules
and hints given on 50 challenge cards divided into 25 Phase 1 and 25 Phase 2.
I enjoyed Phase 1 but Phase 2 seems overly confusing.

September 2014

Yamanaka Kumiki Burr from the Yamanaka Kumiki Works
54 pieces in four different types assemble to make
an attractive symmetrical structure.

While taking inventory in one of my storage cabinets I re-discovered a puzzle I didn't recognize, disassembled in a bag.
I posted a photo of one of the 12 identical pieces to some online forums and asked for help identifying the puzzle.

Several puzzle-friends responded (thanks!), and
John Devost came through,
suggesting the Cubion designed by Philippe Dubois.
(Also sometimes spelled Coubion.)

It fits together albeit with lots of slop. The relatively soft wood makes it easier to "squish" the pieces into place.
The notches are not precisely cut and the resulting fit is imperfect but I cannot fathom any otherbetter configuration of these pieces with their peculiar cuts.
I do not know who made it - it was part of a group
of wooden puzzles
of unkown provenance in an auction lot I won back in December 2007.
Crudely made but I give the maker props for even attempting it since the necessary angles seem so obscure!
I wonder how many Cubions are out there?

Had I reviewed my old What's New pages in the first place,
I would have found this photo I posted back in December 2007 of the assembled form...

But I still wouldn't have known the name of the puzzle.
I hadn't added it to my Interlocking section but I will now.

Kelly Snache is a puzzle-box artist and craftsman in Canada.
Check out his interesting new website at:
Woodlockplans.ca.

I purchased three books by my good puzzle-friend Dr. Richard Hess -
each is a unique compendium of mathematical recreations and logic challenges:
Number-Crunching Math Puzzles - Puzzle Wright Press 2009,
Mental Gymnastics - Dover 2011,
and Golf on the Moon - Dover 2014.
None are tired retreads of old material - each contains new and unusual puzzles.
Some are quite difficult - but solutions are included.
You can purchase these online or directly from the author at
.

Yamanaka Burr Set four classic traditional six-piece burrs from the Yamanaka Kumiki Works
Can the pieces of these four burrs be intermixed to form four other burrs simultaneously?
See my answer.

Gravity Maze - from Thinkfun, designed by Oli Morris

Hive designed and made by Alfons Eyckmans, from Padauk, Moabi, and Oak.

I received several interesting new items from Dave Janelle at
Creative Crafthouse - thanks, Dave!

Hoffman's Packing Box, or
The Inequality of the Means Puzzle - produced by Creative Crafthouse
Fit the 27 identical blocks into the frame.

Pinwheel Puzzle - produced by Creative Crafthouse
Arrange the tiles so that all nine stacks including numbers on the rim add to 20.
Alternately, arrange so that all nine stacks excluding numbers on the rim add to 15.

Enigma II - produced by Creative Crafthouse
Based on the famous German WWII cipher machine - decode several challenges.

Confederate Army Cipher Disk - produced by Creative Crafthouse
For code enthusiasts and history buffs.

Some rare twisty puzzles... - the last few weeks have brought several nice (and rare) twisty puzzles, including (from top left):
Tutt's Icosaminx designed by Lee Tutt and hand-cast by Kevin Uhrik,
a Reuleaux Master Tetrahedron made by Hung Nguyen,
a Master Face-Turning Octahedron designed and made (3D printed) by Tom van der Zanden,
an original vintage Olidjus from Russia,
and a Master Octahedron (vertex-turning) designed by Scott Bedard and hand-cast by Kevin Uhrik (shown previously).

Olidjus - a rare vintage original twisty from Russia

Tutt's Icosaminx - a custom twisty designed by Lee Tutt and hand-cast by Kevin Uhrik

Master Tetrahedron - a reuleaux version made by Hung Nguyen (cublem)
This moves beautifully!

Master FTO - a Master Face-Turning Octahedron designed and made by Tom van der Zanden